A Night in the ER with Aidan Continued

At around 6:45pm Aidan was triaged and they gave him Tylenol and me some apple juice to. They told me to encourage him to drink. A male nurse came in and asked me to take Aidan's shirt off. He had a rash on his chest. Now I was running the diagnoses through my head: scarlet fever? Measles? Mumps? He was behind on his shots, due to our moving and the subsequent premature birth of his sister. I handed over his shot record and tried again to get him to drink. He turned his head into my chest.

His oxygen level looked fine. But they were still going to do a chest x-ray and draw blood. After supplying me with not only the juice but also a bottle of Pedialyte and a towel for his drool and snot, I was escorted back out to the waiting room. I sat next to a busty woman whom I swore I had met before.

"You look familiar to me." I said with Aidan still in my arms. "Do you do renaissance faires?" I was sure I had seen her there that we would strike up a conversation about them. She shook her head.

"I have gone to the one in Fair Oaks." We briefly talked about Mark's business of selling medieval weaponry and then fell silent. She asked if I went to her church. I shook my head. I asked if she attended New Age festivals, no. When I said "well maybe I recognize you because I'm supposed to be here", she looked a bit nervous. I felt as if I sounded like a weirdo. Weirdo mom in the chair to the far left.

I maneuvered the subject to other things. Like why she was there and why I was in the ER. She was there with a friend. It was her 4th time in the ER that week. Once for her and 3 times for other people. I wondered at what that must be like as I ran my fingers through Aidan's hair. Having so many friends and so many ER trips.

Soon we were called to register and while I was filling out more paperwork a tech called Aidan for the x-ray. When she saw I was busy she said "I'll come back to get you." She never came back. After registering, we sat back down with the lady and her friend. The ranch owner across the way began talking to us about how the boy had been injured, riding a bull, and how long they had sat there without even painkillers! Some people were getting rude with Mr. Coke Bottle security guard about the wait time. Their emergency was important they would complain.

I watched with sad eyes. Not because I felt sorry for them but because I understood triage. I had been to the emergency room with my MS more than once and left to sit for hours wondering if the next relapse, the next wave of feeling close to unconsciousness, might be my last, yet treated by hospital staff as if I were a hypochondriac. It would have been easy at that moment to pick and chose who looked sick and who looked in need of emergency care. I could point out if asked who had healthcare and who most likely did not. But now was not the time for judgment or opinions. I knew that screaming at the security guard or accosting the nurses when they came out to call for other people was not going to get Aidan help any faster. I also knew that if he did pass out, they would be on him immediately. Until then we had to sit and wait.

I rocked him as the Kings played a play off game on the nearby TV. I swayed side to side and even chanced a run to the restroom with the nice woman next to me watching Aidan, hoping they did not call him in those few w moments. Each time I used the rest room Aidan would erupt into whines and cries but he seemed unable to produce tears.

After his blood draw, where the tears finally spilled over, we again rejoined the boy with the broken ankle and the woman whose friend had been accosted. I am not sure exactly what had happened, it involved a sheriff taking a report and pictures, so I could only surmise and I felt it would be rude to ask.

I began to wonder at how much information we were all getting about one another. Why we were there, how it had happened, and then each of us venting frustration about the long wait and gossiping about who was on the "fast track" and who wasn't. After the chest x-ray Aidan began to perk up. He drank his apple juice and worked on the Pedialyte. He got out of my lap and into the stroller where he began playing with the removable binky pocket from the diaper bag. It had a tiny rubber duck on it which he often tried to teeth off. He practiced taking the binky in and out of the pouch over and over as toddlers will, and I began to have another worry. What if his fever broke and he began climbing everything? My god, what if he turned into the normal Aidan? He would be a handful, he would climb, throw fits, and be utterly bored! What would I do then??